i 4 THE ENGLISH GARDEN. 



Traitors, forbear to wound them ! fay, ye fools ! 



Does your rich herbage fail ? do acrid leaves 240 



Afford you daintier food ? I plead in vain ; 



For now the father of the fleecy troop 



Begins his devaftation, and his ewes 



Croud to the fpoil, with imitative zeal. 



' 



Since then, conftrain'd, we muft expel the flock 245 



From where .our faplings rife, our flow'rets bloom, 

 The fong mail teach, in clear preceptive notes, 

 How beft to frame the Fence, and beft to hide 

 All its forefeen defects ; defective ftill, 



Tho' hid with happieft art. Ingrateful fure 250 



When fuch the theme, befeems the Poet's taik : 

 Yet muft he try, by modulation meet 

 Of varied cadence, and felected phrafe, 

 ExacT: yet free, without inflation bold, 



To dignify the fubj,ecl:; try to form 255 



That magic fympathy of fenfe with found 

 Which pi&ures all it fings ; while Grace awakes 



At 



